IN a previous chapter was set forth the story of the evolution of our battleships, up to and including the famous _Dreadnought_ of 1907, the so-called "first all-big-gun type". As there had been several "all-big-gun ships" among our earlier ironclads, this description seems hardly warranted. However, the _Dreadnought_ stands pre-eminent as the first of the modern type of battleship, though in power, speed, tonnage, and general efficiency she has been far out-classed by the successive batches of Super-Dreadnoughts which have followed her, which are represented by the _Bellerophon_, _St. Vincent_, _Colossus_, _Orion_, _King George V_, _Iron Duke_, and, last of all, the monster _Queen Elizabeth_, or "_Lizzie_" as she is irreverently called. To describe this latest product of the naval designer's art is the best way of explaining what a really modern battleship is like. The _Queen Elizabeth_, then, is 600 feet in length--that is to say, just 200 yards. Think of the distance you have often seen measured off for a hundred-yards' race, multiply it by two, and you will have some idea of what this means. Or, if you have ever done any shooting on the range, try to remember how far off the 200-yard target looked, and you will realize what must be the size of a ship long enough to cover all the ground between it and the firing-point. (The _Dreadnought_, by the way, was only 490 feet in length.) The beam of the _Queen Elizabeth_ is 92 feet--10 feet more than that of the _Dreadnought_. You may well imagine that the tonnage, or weight of water displaced, by a ship of these dimensions is enormous, and so it is, being no less than 27,500 tons! So, also, is the horse-power of her engines--58,000! But when we know that they have to be able to drive this leviathan through the water at a speed of 25 knots an hour, we can well understand the necessity for powerful engines. To feed their furnaces 4000 tons of fuel are carried. It is not coal, but what is known as "heavy oil", arrangements having been made by the Admiralty for an immense quantity of this fuel, which is considered to have many advantages over coal. Earlier ships carry a proportion of both coal and oil. The engines are, of course, of the turbine type, which has entirely superseded the old reciprocating engines in the Royal Navy. "The introduction of the turbine engine", writes a naval officer, "has revolutionized the appearance of the engine-room. The flashing piston-rods and revolving cranks have vanished. All the driving-power of the ship is hidden in some mahogany-sheathed horizontal cylinders, and there is nothing to indicate that the engines are in movement but a small external dial and needle no larger than a mantelpiece clock, attached to each of the shafts, of which there are two in each engine-room."[68]